The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811

by Winston Graham

  It was only after he had read the letter and pondered on the best excuse he could make to refuse that he turned the paper over and saw that Caroline had written on the back: ‘If Valentine is home, pray bring him with you. My Aunt, Mrs Pelham, is staying with us for two weeks. Hence this party to welcome in the Dog Days.’

  He rode up to Killewarren a little before four accompanied by his son and a groom, and noted that for all her wealth and youth and enterprise Caroline had done little to improve the building since that old skinflint her Uncle Ray had lived there. Strange that Dwight Enys, so forward-looking in his physical theories, still young and energetic and in contact with many of the best medical and scientific brains in the country, should not have torn down that wing and put up something more modern or even razed the place and started over again. It did not occur to George that anyone might really like it that way.

  The first persons he saw when he went into the big parlour were two Poldarks. Not, thank God, Ross and Demelza – even Caroline Enys would be beyond such a fox paw, as old Hugh Bodrugan used to call it – but the son and daughter, which was bad enough. And whom were they talking to? George was a man of composed character and there were few emotions which could stir him deeply. But now it was as if the book of his feelings was laid open and a wind were riffling the pages.

  Lady Harriet Carter was smiling at something that Clowance had said, and her brilliant teeth were just hinted at between the upcurved lips. She was in a saffron-coloured frock with cream lace at the throat and cuffs. A topaz brooch and earrings. Her hair gleamed, as always; as black as Elizabeth’s had once been fair. George just noticed the other people in the room, greeted Mrs Pelham, Colonel Webb; someone with a long neck and a face like Robespierre whose name was Pope, with a pretty blonde young wife who seemed scarcely older than the two simpering girls who seemed also to be his. And a dark smooth slim young man called Kellow or some such.

  He was bowing over Harriet’s hand. Momentarily she was by herself.

  ‘Sir George.’ She was cold but not at all put out. ‘The last time we met was at the Duchess of Gordon’s, when you were about to take me to see Admiral Pellew’s white lion.’

  ‘True, ma’am. I –’

  ‘Alas, then, all of a sudden, as if you’d seen a ghost, an apparition, a spectre, an affrite, you made your excuses and left. Business, you said. Business. Which has taken six months.’

  ‘That must have seemed grossly impolite on my part –’

  ‘Well, yes, it did. Yes, it has. Naturally, since I am a clear-sighted person, a simple explanation presents itself.’

  ‘Lady Harriet, I can assure you that would be very far from the truth. Indeed, the contrary.’

  ‘What contrary applies? Pray enlighten me.’

  George took a breath. ‘I sincerely wish I could explain in a few words all that has passed. Alas, it would take an hour, perhaps more. Perhaps I could never quite explain how it came about –’

  He stopped. She raised her eyebrows. ‘How it came about?’

  He glanced at Clowance, but she was talking to Valentine. Jeremy had turned away.

  ‘Explain,’ he said, ‘that my agitation that evening was the outcome of negotiations I had entered into – nay, completed – because of my wish to stand more – more substantially in the eyes of your family…’

  ‘My family? What the pox have they to do with it?’

  A hint of caution crossed his mind. She had been a little disingenuous there. ‘You must understand.’

  ‘Indeed, I do not.’

  ‘Then one day I will explain.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Because the time isn’t ripe. Because this moment is hardly the most propitious moment … surrounded as we are…’

  She looked around, eyes taking in the company, a hint of humour at the back.

  ‘Well, Sir George, you write the most diverting letters … Unless by chance you should sit next to me this afternoon …

  III

  They were at dinner, and Harriet, by Caroline’s design, did sit next to George. Clowance sat next to his son. She’d seen Valentine twice in ten years. He was enormously changed; good-looking in a decadent way. A lock of hair constantly fell across his brow; his eyes were too knowledgeable in one so young; but he had great charm.

  ‘I met Jeremy at the Trevanions’. But not little Clowance. When last I saw you you really were little Clowance. Not so any longer.’

  His eyes lingered on her, and she felt that he had already known other women and had a fair idea of what she would look like without her clothes on. It was not totally an unpleasant feeling. Something about his cheerful grin robbed it of its offence, made it friendly, sexual, but unashamed.

  ‘Are you home from Eton?’

  ‘Yes, m’dear. We’re much of an age, aren’t we? One or other of us scrambled to get out into the world before the world used up all its fun! I b’lieve I was first by a few months, wasn’t I? Born under a “black moon”, they say. Very unlucky, they say. How’s your luck been of late?’

  He might have been asking her some intimate questions about her personal life. She said: ‘Are you staying at Cardew?’

  ‘Betwixt there and Truro. I must confess to you, dear cousin, I must confess the local scene seems a little barren of lively young people. Why don’t you trot over? You and Jeremy. I believe we should find interests in common.’

  ‘I don’t know if we should be welcome…’

  ‘This stupid feud. It’s best dead and buried, isn’t it. Is that why your parents aren’t here tonight?’

  ‘They came last night. Aunt Caroline thought…’

  ‘I know exactly what she thought. Your father and my father, always swearing at each other like two alley cats. Yet they’ve never fought a duel. Why not, I wonder? Twould clear the air. Indeed it might clear one or t’other out of the way and make for a friendlier life altogether. I expect my father has been the slow coach. Not a one for firearms, is Papa. One rather for the heavy hand in which the money-bags are barely concealed. Whereas I always picture your father riding to the wars with a gun on his shoulder.’

  Valentine looked across at Sir George, who was talking to the dark handsome woman on his right. They had had a right-down set-to before they came out, he and his father. He had spent a week in London on his way home from Eton and had added greatly to his debts; this news he had allowed to leak out slowly, and the worst of it had only broken today. Sir George had been furious – perhaps more angry than he had ever seen him before. Some casual remark of Valentine’s near the end, some casual reference to the bullion in the bank, had set Sir George off and he had called Valentine an indolent, lecherous, good-for-nothing who’d be better off taking the King’s shilling and plodding it out in the ranks of the army than acting the posturing, simpering roué, a disgrace to his family and his name.

  It had been harshly said and harshly meant. Most times Valentine was able to trade upon his father’s natural pride in him to soften the anger at his dissolute behaviour. Not this time. Something had gone wrong in his calculations and the alarm he felt disguised itself as reciprocal anger. When he answered back the third time he thought Sir George was going to strike him. So his remark to Clowance about the duel and its possible consequences was not unmeant. He would not have been at all grieved at this moment to see his distinguished and powerful father stretched in a pool of blood on some lonely heath while a surgeon knelt over him and gravely shook his head.

  Instead he was seated across the table talking earnestly to this woman. Who was she, and what was his father being so zealous about? Had the lady rolling mills to sell? Or a foundry? Or a blowing house? Did she represent some banking interest he was anxious to acquire? Nothing else surely could ever engage his attention so completely. (Valentine knew so well his father’s social manner when, although engaged in conversation with one person, his eyes would roam about the room seeing if there were better pastures to graze in.)

  And then Valentine caught a look in h
is father’s eye and realized with a shock that there was one other interest which could invoke earnest conversation, though it was an utter revelation to discover that his father was likely to be so caught up. Valentine had long since concluded that nothing could be further from his father’s thoughts than any interest in any woman at any time. For herself, that was. But unless he had totally and crassly misread Sir George’s look of a moment ago, this was for herself.

  She was very handsome, certainly; mature but very handsome. But his father was so old …

  ‘Shall you?’ said Clowance, eyeing him candidly.

  ‘Shall I what?’ He coughed to hide his own expression.

  ‘You were speaking just now of riding to the wars.’

  ‘Like my half-brother? It depends. I frequently go shooting, you know; but then, the birds don’t shoot back, do they. I think at the moment I have too much of a fancy to enjoy life to put it wantonly at risk. Though my father was suggesting tonight that I might like to join a line regiment.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was not intended as an inducement but as a sort of a threat.’

  ‘Why should he threaten you?’

  ‘Because I have been living above my means.’

  ‘At Eton?’

  ‘And in London. I have friends in London and we know how to make merry. I am not to be allowed to return there at the end of this vacation, but must post straight back to school. In truth, Clowance…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was serious just now. Why should you and Jeremy not come and spend a day or two with me next week? It will greatly alleviate my feeling of imprisonment, and Father will be away then so you need have no fear of embarrassment.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Jeremy will be here, but I leave for Wiltshire tomorrow.’

  ‘For a visit? To see friends?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For long?’

  ‘It will be three weeks, I suppose, there and back.’

  ‘Do you have a sweetheart in Wiltshire, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There I think you deceive me. For if it were true, wouldn’t there have been a moment’s hesitation, some mantling of the girlish cheeks?’

  ‘My cheeks don’t mantle.’

  ‘I wager we might try someday.’ Valentine laughed. ‘You have to remember you’re not really my cousin, Cousin … By the way – ‘ he lowered his voice – ‘what is the name of my other neighbour?’

  ‘Mrs Pope. Mrs Selina Pope.’

  ‘Is she the daughter-in-law of that tall thin old feller?’

  ‘No, his wife.’

  ‘God’s wounds.’

  … Further up the table his father said: ‘Well, madam, you ask an explanation, and it is your right. But how to begin it here?…’

  ‘You may have noticed, Sir George, that confessions at the dinner table are seldom overheard by anyone except the person for whom they are intended, since everyone else talks so loud anyhow. But pray do not let me press you.’

  George took a gulp of wine. Normally he drank with caution, as if fearing someone might be going to take advantage of him.

  ‘Since you are clear-sighted, Lady Harriet, it cannot have escaped your notice that I had thoughts about you of a warmer nature than mere friendship. When I called to see your brother, the Duke, he made it clear that he did not think me of a birth or breeding suitably elevated to entertain such thoughts. After due consideration I persuaded myself that rich commoners are not infrequently admitted as equals in the highest society, if their wealth is but of sufficient extent and substance.’

  A servant put a new plate in front of him, and he was helped to poached turbot.

  ‘So far I have followed you quite clearly, Sir George. Am I right in supposing that the business you are now involved in…?’

  ‘Was involved in. For it proved a business of a disastrous nature. My lack of communication with you since then has been because of a knowledge that, far from improving my claims, this speculation has reduced them to almost nothing.’

  … Caroline said to Jeremy: ‘So they are off tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, we leave at six, and will ride in with them, to see them take the coach and bring their horses back.’

  ‘I believe it will be of benefit to them both. You know, of course, I love them dearly.’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Especially your mother, whom I have known the longer! Would you believe that when we first met, and for quite a while, we looked on each other with the gravest suspicion and an element of distrust.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘We came of such different worlds. I from an artificial, elegant and social existence in Oxfordshire and in London. She, in the most delightful way, was of the earth, earthy. When our friendship grew it was the stronger for having roots in both worlds. That is why I badly wanted them to accept this invitation.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Clowance is in common sense as earthy as your mother, though in a somewhat different way. Edward Fitzmaurice, who seems to have taken this fancy to her, is elegant, sophisticated, lives in a world of convention and fashion. Whether they will like each other more or less from longer contact I cannot prophesy. But they will do each other good. Each will have an eye opened to another view of life. I do not suppose Edward will ever before have met a girl like Clowance, who says what she thinks. And she has just glimpsed his style of life in London and will benefit by seeing more. As for your mother … She went into society quite often when she was younger – never without the greatest of a success. Of late years your father has been often away and her visits to London rare. She still has doubts about herself sometimes, especially without Ross.’

  ‘But you have none?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Jeremy considered and then smiled. ‘No,’ he said.

  Chapter Six

  I

  Mrs Pelham, who was sitting next to Colonel Webb but found him temporarily occupied with the beguiling, willowy Mrs Selina Pope, turned to her other neighhour, placed there naughtily by Caroline because she knew her aunt adored the company of handsome young men.

  ‘And pray, Mr Kellow, what is your profession? I take it you are not in the Services?’

  ‘No, ma’am, not yet. Though I have a promise of a commission next year. For the present I help my father. He owns and runs most of the coaches in Cornwall.’ Paul was never above a little exaggeration.

  ‘Do you mean public coaches?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, in the main. He operates three coaches a week each way from Falmouth to Plymouth. And others from Helston, Truro and St Austell. We hope shortly to begin a service to and from Penzance, but there are difficulties with the road across the tidal estuary.’

  ‘All the roads are difficult,’ said Mrs Pelham with feeling.

  ‘Did you come by stage coach, ma’am?’

  ‘No, by post-chaise.’

  ‘Then you may have used some of our horses.’

  ‘The horses, so far as I was able to observe, were excellent.’

  ‘But not the roads? No, ma’am, but I assure you they are improved even from five years ago. Of course what I hope someday…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You must find this a tedious conversation after London.’

  ‘You were saying you hoped someday … It is never tedious to hear a young man’s hopes.’

  Paul smiled. ‘Even though his hopes may seem dull in the telling? … What I hope is that before long we may be able to dispense with many of the horses – thus enabling the coaches to go three and four times the distance before stopping, and thus making the distances seem half as far by introducing the steam-propelled carriage.’

  Sarah Pelham suppressed a shudder. ‘You really believe that that would someday be practical?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  She looked at his slim, dark, feline face, composed in the confident planes of youth. ‘You think people will accept the greater discomfort
and the greater danger?’

  ‘I should not suppose there would be an increase of either, ma’am. The saving in time will be very substantial.’

  ‘When there is all the added risk of overturning? And the dangers of being scalded by escaping steam!’

  ‘The roads must be improved, of a certainty. But that will have to happen in any case so soon as the war is over. In Ayrshire there is a man called Macadam using new methods. As for the dangers of steam, they are exaggerated. I have,’ Paul said casually, ‘been working on an engine recently, and you will see I am suffering no scalds.’

  ‘And your father is a believer in all this too? He is hoping to introduce steam carriages on the roads of Cornwall?’

  ‘My father is not privy to it as yet. He comes of an old family and does not perhaps see commerce as younger men do. Nor innovations. I am working, planning, for ten years ahead. In five years it will be time enough to show him the advantage of steam and how the business of Royal Mail coaches and land transport should be run.’

  The red-nosed flatulent seedy man who overdrank and was always in debt would no doubt have been flattered to have been described as coming of an old family, but Paul, speaking to a stranger who would soon return to London, felt he could allow himself a little licence even beyond the usual.

  Breast of veal in white wine was served, with young carrots and fresh raspberries.

  … Valentine said: ‘Mrs Pope, you have been neglecting me.’

  Selina Pope turned: ‘On the contrary, I think, Mr – er – Warleggan. You have been so engaged with Miss Poldark that I have hardly got a look in.’

  ‘Miss Poldark is a sort of cousin of mine – though the relationship is very complex.’